Blood Red Sandman
by RangerBlack
Summary: Orochimaru chuckled richly as the blood of his Akatsuki partner pooled at the soles of his sandals. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt who it would be that would replace the late criminal, he approved actually. Despite the horror and gore the young Sasori


( **Author's Note**:Blood Red Sandman- Lyrics are from Lordi and are in _italics_. I do not own these lyrics or the characters within the story. This song-fic was inspired by FF.N/ author **Shaithan**'s review to my story Enter Sandman. Enjoy.)

It was like watching a hunter field-dress large game, the body hanging upside down from an old tree as blood sluggishly dripped down, assisted by gravity. With neat experienced hands and the necessary tools the hair was cleaned off with the outer layers of skin right along with it. Like a perforated outline he carefully scoured strategic grooves into the skin of the whole body before slicing cleanly all the way through the abdomen wall and letting the entrails spill out at his feet.

Some of the organs he butchered out he handled with calculated care to a tarp laid out a few steps away from the gore. Stomach, liver, even some of the large intestines were cut away with a subdued bit of fanfare and deposited on the stack of prizes.

Complete in a disturbingly short amount of time the man returned to the corpse and systematically filleted the body of skin, muscle and sinew. Like a choreographed dance between flesh and blade the sickening sound of the knife, growing ever duller as it tore through the still slackened muscle of the corpse, slicked over the small campsite.

Skin was added to the pile now, as was special bands of sinew and hunks of meat, but what was by far the most horrific part was that the body's major veins and arteries weren't being ripped out, but being finessed out whole, the complicated tree of tubing dangling from the unexpectedly caressing fingers of the small man.

A delicately slim blade shaped flat and spade-like was lined up behind the dead man's head; with a sharp tap it pierced skin and spinal chord. Easily, with his scalpel following the previously scoured line, he cut a complete ring around the neck.

It was almost beyond describing when he cut away at the jaw, separating both sides from the chin and skillfully snapped the natural hinge loose, the tongue lolling uselessly against its face, bound to be the next target of the deconstructive surgeon's attention.

Move to words after watching the head being removed fully and the brain invaded, scrambled and removed shortly before the eyes were cut away precisely and stored in a glass jar, the audience finally spoke.

"What do they call you boy?"

_They called me the Leather Apron  
They called me Smiling Jack  
They prayed to the heavens above  
That I would never ever come back_

"So they knew you did this?"

The redhead unconsciously curved a smile at the thought of his ex-home.

_ Can you hear how the children weep?  
Chills of fear like a saw blade cutting deep..._

The body was now a mess, unrecognizable as anything even once human. Limbs, head and ribcage were all sitting atop the pile, waiting patiently as he stripped the clinging meat off the bones, neurotically plucking morsel out from between vertebrae.

'They never proved anything," Sasori murmured in a surprisingly content and mocking tone. The spine was now spotless, the spinal chord still locked uselessly within the bone. Connected to the spine was the fused portion of the pelvis, also cleaned to stark purity.

"Why do you do it?"

_ Once again there is pain, I bring flames, I bring cold  
I'm the Blood Red Sandman coming home  
On this unholy night I will make you my own  
Blood Red Sandman coming home again  
I'm coming home again!_

Orochimaru chuckled richly as the blood of his Akatsuki partner pooled at the soles of his sandals. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt who it would be that would replace the late criminal, he approved actually. Despite the horror and gore the young Sasori's preferred skill was detailed and delightfully complex, and art you might even say…

The snowdrifts were muddled red, just like the pure white sands of their last mission had been. It never failed to occur anywhere they ever were, a whitewashed siding, a snowy robe, the pallor of the fair skinned, scarlet held in agonizing relief against a back drop of pale. It was a tradition, habit and still so much more then a choice; it was a necessity.

If there was one thing Sasori could be labeled it was probably precise. If it was a massive annihilation Leader wanted then rest assured there would be no survivors when the two killers left town. Even during smaller scaled assassinations many more lives were cut down to satisfy the puppeteer's 'Defilement fetish'.

_ Red drops stain satin so white  
The way I sign my name  
The neighborhood's pretty dead at night  
And I'm the one to blame_

But in the end Sasori truly was a monster, the kind that feed off the fear and dementia of existence. He pulled more then stings, he pulled Hell around as though a pet on a leash, ever tempted to let the nightmare loose to run free across innocence and evil alike. He never cared who it was that ended up in his morbid collection, but rather _what_ the newest addition could do. He rarely used more then two at a time and if he did they didn't dance well together. He relied on a single entity at a time, lowering openings in concentration and enhancing dexterity and reaction times. But for as simple minded as that may seem it was actually true genius, if he chose to unleash his entire army the pure force of the combatants, even slower and less graceful, was enough to crush a massive military wave.

It was an unnecessary strategic maneuver expounding on brute force in excessive amounts. It was redundant and therefore never really a logical choice when out of the two hundred of his humanoid weaponry over one hundred of them were fully capable of slaughtering hundreds of living shinobi… alone.

_ Can you hear how the children weep?  
Chills of fear like a saw blade cutting deep..._

Sasori enjoyed his art. The fight, the fall, the death, the grind of blade against bone and the next battle in which he will stand off armed by his new toy, the marionette now fight for him, a slave to his safety, his entertainment. Those who fell before him and decomposed as nature intended … it was them who were the lucky ones. The others would become responsible for other monstrosities like themselves. If only those unfortunates had been stronger, or weaker…

To Sasori there was only this: the game, the strings, the screams and the contentment. It took him two weeks to create a new doll from scratch, two weeks of purpose, responsibility. You see Sasori loved his art because it was the only sense of home he'd ever known.

_ Once again there is pain, I bring flames, I bring cold  
I'm the Blood Red Sandman coming home  
On this unholy night I will make you my own  
Blood Red Sandman coming home again  
I'm coming home again!_

He still remembers the nightmares he'd suffered once upon so long ago. He can still recall the abhorrent paralysis caused by a fear nameless to the entire world but him. He can still remember when he watched shadows for monsters like the ones his Grandmother could move about with string, back in the days when he waited for a pair to arrive bloody and mauled, smiling gruesome cajoling grins, their eyes glossy glass eyes holing none of the warmth they once held…

Oh yes, he can relate to the screams and panic his victims suffered at his hand. He can feel their thrill, the incapacitating horror, because the only differences between them and himself was the catalyst that turned fear to power and human to monster. As he was now he was the nightmare of his childhood, the evil of the living masses, he was the unspeakable abomination capable of being that unholy catalyst. The cycle was vicious, sick, coal black and utterly unbreakable.

_Scream all you want you won't wake up when you scream. No one leaves…The Monterican Dream._

The Great War left thousands with broken families, hundreds of Sunagakure's children became wards of the state, the pain of loss was so wide spread and yet somehow, even for the few months, he'd believed his Grandma Chiyo when she told him his parents were simply away… He knew somewhere in the back of his mind she was lying, but the innocent child he'd once been had wanted to believe in those lies, he wanted to believe one day his loving parents would come back through the doorway and hold him close like they always had before… Before they died. Despite the good intentions the lies and the unnamed fear broke the innocence of the young Sasori, shattering any hope for the generations of peace the world was due after so many years of blood and sadistic pain.

_Can you hear how the children weep?_

To be honest there was never any hope for the Sand child or those he'd later lay claim to. From the beginning of his life his times with his Grandmother had left him with awe for the art of puppetry and once the concept was seeded he found himself visualizing everything on a breakdown pattern, with the emptiness of his world after his parents' true fate it was his own fate to turn to the family skill. With humans as the preferred formation method it was only too easy to imagine he challenge of skinning hide, sawing bones and devising new age hinges to mimic the grace of the living body, now preserved, forever as it was, as it should be.

_ Chills of fear like a saw blade cutting deep…_

His very first attempt had been a bloody mess, literally. The kill its self had simply been necessity, but the male ninja, not much older then himself had been, was a particularly hard to cut down. The intrigue set in…

Alone an so far from the prying eyes of Sunagakure's Kazekage and even so far from the country of Sand his actions were to be held on merit and honor. The twitching in his fingers so similar to the familiar flicks of the strings now itched for something far different then wood and heavy gears.

It was possible, he could do it, and he knew he could, but the only thing that gave him pause had him brood the long night straight through to dawn. He needed a plan, a design. To make a puppet is to make every piece from scratch. The pieces to a human puppet were already there, with and easy hundred or so pounds of unnecessary meat and fluids to get rid of in some manner or another. It'd take him longer then his mission's timeline allowed, especially when disassembling on the fly with no previous anatomy studies passed what it took to graduate to Chunin status. A strategy, an educated guess…

It ended up being the longest puppet project he'd ever completed at one month and ten days. The skin had shrink too tight over the ribs before hardening, an in over view it was too small and mostly useless, unable to hold as many weapons as a typical wooden puppet. But it was _fast_, far lighter then the regular marionettes, it responded so well it seemed to still be alive.

The addiction, now in full bloom continued, to urge him to do more and like with most drugs its only price was demented mania. But the power, the rush was a gift of life bought in blood to the young Sasori, and he paid his dues with relish.

_ Once again there is pain, I bring flames, I bring cold  
I'm the Blood Red Sandman coming home  
On this unholy night I will make you my own  
Blood Red Sandman coming home again  
I'm coming home again!_

It'd been a long time since last he'd seen the old sandstone walls of his former Village; in fact it'd been so long as to outdate the induction of his ridiculous new partner.

Blonde, brash and mocking the boy respected his elder's artistic views but loved to challenge them day in, day out. The boy, Deidara, was actually very clever, able to spring into action half cocked and still maintain an advantage of long range and speed. Quite talented for someone so young and stupid, but Sasori still found the kid's teasing, testing nature to be highly annoying.

Take now for an example: they'd traveled days to get to Sunagakure, unsure whether the mind suppressing jutsu on the inside man Sasori had laid claim to far before Orochimaru left, had held solid over the years or whether their mission would be fraught with disaster and chaos. Days upon days of silence, of space to have thoughts completely at leisure days of peace, and _he_ waited until the gate was in sight, the desert's sun beating a merciless tattoo of heat down on them and their black cloaks to _sing_. That's right: _sing_.

And what's more annoying then singing at a time like this? Singing about the irate puppeteer, if you can believe it.

And yet is worse still is that the damned thing was very catchy. And appropriate actually.

"_Once again there is pain, I bring flames, I bring cold  
I'm the Blood Red Sandman coming home  
On this unholy night I will make you my own  
Blood Red Sandman coming home again  
I'm coming home again!__"_

The End


End file.
